


Creating Christmas

by dilangley



Series: get a life (you first) [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Almost Dancing, Christmas Eve, F/M, We're still slow burning y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 14:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19358848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: A Christmas party, a day of domesticity, and a night of almost tragedy... Steve and Natasha celebrate Christmas 1945 before major changes on the horizon.





	Creating Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This one does not stand alone particularly well, so if you have not read anything else in this series, you may want to crash course by reading "Promises Kept" and "Punches Thrown." If you've read those two, this one will at least make good solid sense.
> 
> WARNING: This story does contain references to suicide that could act as a trigger for some readers. Please be cautious with yourself.

The Department of Veteran Affairs Christmas Ball was a serious fundraiser, a high-class event held in the ballroom of an elegant hotel. Invitations on heavy cream paper flooded into the mailboxes of well-to-do people throughout New York City and the Jersey coast. 

No one who fought in the trenches could afford to attend. No one whose injuries clashed with cheery holiday decor would have been welcome.

So the Brooklyn VA hospital held its own event in its cafeteria, and somehow no amount of red and green tinsel or cartoon Santas could make it tacky. Natasha could not take credit for the idea -- that had been a fifty-year-old nurse named Victoria who served overseas -- but her hands had been part of the grunt work. More than that, she had joined the confederacy of people who took this event just as seriously as “the real ball.”

So Natasha had gussied up like a single woman hoping to catch a husband. Her blue dress had an extravagant bow at the hip, a cheeky bit of fashion for the season. When she had looked like a million bucks, she lacquered her pin curls and added rosy lipstick to bump it to two million. Steve hadn’t been able to find words to compliment her, but the low whistle and sudden heat in his eyes had done it on their own.

“Are you pleased?” He asked now. They leaned against the wall together and surveyed the room. Sixty-some people milled around, letting the low buzz of their chatter warm the space.

“The dinner was good. We’ll see if these guys who said they would play actually can.” She pointed to the ragtag trio setting up in the corner. One of the guys lived a few blocks from them and had brought a clarinet. The other two had guitars. 

“Nat…” He turned her name into admonition.

“What?”

“Be proud. You’ve done a good thing here.”

“I haven’t done anything,” she said. “And you know I am not one for false modesty. I toot my own horn.”

“Sometimes.” 

Natasha listened to the musicians’ warm up. The cacophony of odd, intermittent noises finally became energetic “Jingle Bells.” A man in Nat’s support group -- a kid no more than twenty with night terrors so violent he might never get out of here -- approached with a sheepish grin. 

“Nat?” He nervously stammered out the name she had insisted upon; they wanted to use the more appropriate “Mrs. Johnson,” but she couldn’t bear it. Not if these people were going to be her friends. “Do you dance?”

She resisted the urge to glance up at Steve, read his face for amusement. Instead, she nodded. “Badly.”

“Me too,” Joe said. “But Marty bet me a buck that I wouldn’t ask you to dance and then he put another dollar down saying you’d turn me down flat.”

“Who’s Marty?”

“My buddy over there.” Joe pointed to a lean young man against the opposite wall. Natasha had never seen him before. “We served together, but he had the indecency to come home and acclimate just fine. He lives in Queens.”

“Oh. Well, then the very least we can do is take his money.” Natasha held out her hand, and Joe accepted it with a flourish. Within three steps, he had established their rhythm, perhaps slightly off the beat but warm, capable. Comparing this version of Joe to the one she had seen on evening shifts, curled in a chair with playing cards, trying anything to stay awake, terror replacing the blue irises in his eyes, made her smile. 

She tilted her head to look at Steve. He waved.

“Has anyone ever told you your husband looks like Captain America?” Joe asked.

Surprisingly, this was the first time, so she could answer honestly. “No. But I can see it, I guess.”

How they had worried at first. His confidence that a hat and a little slouch could disguise him had never been hers. Even now, she marveled that everyone didn’t see it. Captain America had never been about star-spangled uniform and vibranium shield. It had never been a character acted out by Steve Rogers, not really. Yes, she had seen the old reels and heard the teasing from other Avengers, but she knew the truth.

Captain America had been made up entirely of Steve Rogers: his stubbornness, his stupid, reckless loyalty, his moral compass that only pointed due North. 

But her fears of these qualities shining so obviously had been unfounded. No one had said a word until now.

“Did he ever meet him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I did. I was in Italy when he came on his tour. I think we were pretty rough on him. Nobody knew then, y’know, that he was the real deal. We thought it was just some show.” 

“I’m sure he understood.”

“I hope so.” 

They sashayed into the next song -- a hearty, clarinet-filled Rudolph -- and changed the subject.

Joe wasn’t the only one to ask her to dance that evening. Through every brassy Christmas song, she hoofed along with a different person. She never found the steps; each man seemed to interpret each song differently. Sometimes the hand was at her waist, initiating lateral movement, and other times, it rested against her shoulder blade, pushing them through a box step. Natasha was graceful, even in heels, but she was not used to the feeling of uncertainty in motion. 

With each dance partner, she found herself looking again to Steve, and with each one, she expected something from him. Maybe he would cut in like a gentleman in an old movie, claim the next dance as his own. Maybe he would crook a finger and ask her to come over, simply because he missed her presence at his side. 

Maybe what she wanted, in some secret, whispery, unspoken corner of her mind, was for him to want her so badly he would dance with the wrong girl.

His face never left pleasant neutrality. He chatted with people, and he smiled each time she caught his eye. 

He never asked anyone to dance. Peggy Carter alone still held that honor.

When they left for the evening, Steve tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and told her how wonderful it had all been. He outlined her contributions when she politely downplayed them, pointed out to her each little thing she had barely noticed: how she always found a smile for each person there, how she knew everyone’s name from patient to group leader to janitor, how she had picked up discarded napkins off the floor anytime she saw them.

“You’re very observant, Cap,” she teased as they stepped into the apartment. She flicked the light switch and shrugged her coat off. It was only after she had tucked it on the hanger that she heard the silence. Steve still stood in the doorway, his hands in his coat pockets, and the pleasant, personable expression had fallen away. His eyes lit her up with concern; she had seen him like this before, but then, they had both been lost in a new world. This was his world. He should have been fine. 

“Hey, you okay?” She tried and failed to keep her voice light. 

Like a mask, his company face covered the nakedness of the seconds before. He smiled and finished taking off his coat.

“Yeah. I’m just tired.” 

But the uncontested lie hid nothing as they undressed and went to bed. He waited until she had fluffed her pillows and tossed and turned a few times before he put an arm across her. She hesitated only a moment before turning into him. His arms closed, vice-like in their grip, harder, surely, than he meant them to be, but she pressed her nose into his neck.

Mind reading was impossible; this wasn’t a fairy tale, and they were no soulmates. But she held him close until their breathing synced and then his slack, muffled snoring replaced the heavy silence.

  
  


\-------------------

  
  


Natasha had always been a light sleeper, awake at every sound, trained in body and brain to never be vulnerable. Steve knew this. So every Saturday, when the early loads came into the harbor, he would sneak out of bed at 2:30 in the morning. Normally, she lay carefully, pretending to still be asleep, secretly laughing at the stilted, cautious morning routine. He would take 5 minutes to take his shirt and pants out of the dresser, sliding out the squeaky drawer at half-speed. If a particularly hearty creak rang out, he would freeze like a child playing tag.

It always woke her up, all of it, from the first second he got out of bed, but she pretended it didn’t.

Today, however, she awoke with a start to… nothing. She sat up to sunlight streaming through the bedroom window and the clock ticking away 8:32. 

“Shit.” 

She took care of her morning business and made her way out into the kitchen. On the counter, she spotted a note.

_ Natasha, _

_ I never thought I would actually get up without waking you. I put your present under the tree, but I did not have any wrapping paper so do not open the cardboard box. Tonight I think we will take the subway to Manhattan to see that big tree. It is a New York experience everyone should have. _

_ Merry Christmas Eve.  _

_ \-- Steve _

The old-fashioned formality, always with a salutation and closing, made her smile almost as much as his revelation that he always knew when she was pretending to sleep. 

She spent the day half-heartedly tackling household chores, washing a dish and then sitting down with her book for twenty minutes, making a loaf of bread and then folding up new paper decorations the tree didn’t need, conning Molly into going with her to buy wrapping paper so the half-hour errand could become three hours.

Though she had lived her life in a man’s world, surrounded by combat and testosterone, Natasha had never yearned for female companionship. She had not known its unique comforts and joys until this friendship with Molly, whose sense of humor and vivacity astounded. 

“I have a date after the holidays. He’s a veteran, and I thought I would brush him off when he first asked because I don’t need all that baggage trailing along behind me.” Molly sipped her coffee, burned her tongue, and made a face. “Every time. Yeesh.” 

She continued. “But he’s got this smile, real nice, y’know? He is in the law office all the time trying to get his G.I. bill straight ‘cause he wants to go to college.”

“College boy,” Natasha teased but did not interrupt.

“That’s how he got me to say yes. He asked me if I had gone to college, and when I said no, he asked if I wanted to, what I’d want to study, all that jazz. I told him about how I always liked biology, even though our teacher always sent the girls out for dissections, and he asked me if I’d like to go to the Brooklyn Zoo next week. Said maybe I could teach him a thing or two about the animals since he didn’t do so hot in biology himself. He liked geology more. That’s with rocks.”

“I know.” Natasha noted the curvy optimism of the smile on Molly’s face. “So what’s his name?”

“No.”

“That’s an unusual name.”

“No. You’re going to pull his file at the VA and tell me something bad about him, and I don’t wanna know anything bad about him.”

“Maybe his file will say only good things.”

“You’ll find something bad. It’s illegal, y’know, and it’s immoral too, to always be looking for ways to keep us girls single while you’ve got the best fella in the whole city at home.” 

“Just give me his name. Think of how much more you’ll enjoy your date if you know there’s nothing bad in the file.”

“Fine. After Christmas. For your sake, I’m keeping you out of the hospital for a few days. You’ve been working constantly. I haven’t thrown a punch in two weeks.”

When they finished their second cup of coffee each and their third snowman cookie, Natasha and Molly went home. Their daytime layers did nothing against the biting nighttime chill, so they walked arm in arm, Molly pulling Natasha’s scarf over her own nose to rub away the cold, Natasha admiring the strange peace of Christmas Eve, shops closing early and holiday lights twinkling in doorways and through windows.

It was closer to the apartment, though, that the scene changed. A pair of cop cars, parked on the curb flashing lights, signaled something wrong; the crowd of onlookers on the sidewalk staring up signaled what.

A jumper. A person outlined against the star-studded sky at the edge of the rooftop, facing away from the city sidewalk and commotion below.

Natasha squinted up. Perspective at distance, particularly height, could be skewed, but the person looked to be male, maybe 155 pounds, maybe 5’8”. 

“Holy Joe,” Molly murmured and then ducked her head to mumble out a prayer. Natasha wished she could feel comforted by that simple gesture.

“Excuse me.” She approached the police captain at the band of watchers. She smoothed out her voice, turned up the pitch, sped up the pace, wiggled her authoritative concern to fear. She lied without hesitation. “I live in this building, and I just got home, and I’m so worried that could be my husband.”

“There’s no identification yet, ma’am. He said he’d jump if anyone came up there, so we’re talking to him from the ground right now.” He pointed to a deputy with a megaphone a few feet away. “He’s been up there a while and hasn’t pulled the trigger, so I’m thinking he doesn’t much want to die before Santy Claus comes to town.”

“Okay.” Natasha recognized the seeming insensitivity as protection; this police chief had to be able to go home in a few hours, face a wife and kids and make Christmas magic, regardless of whether or not this man killed himself. Survival instincts come in all forms. 

She stepped back into Molly’s orbit. “They don’t know who it is.”

“It’s awful.”

“Maybe. Listen, I’m going to go inside, see if I can find Steve.”

“You don’t think….” Molly squeaked a little in her throat, but Natasha cut her off before she could finish.

She shook her head. “Not for one second. I just want to see if he can help.”

“Okay. I’ll stay here.” Molly hesitated. “Is that awful? I think I’m staying because I want it to see everything turn out swell, but what if I’m just a nosey broad like half these other people out here?”

“Stay. You’re praying for him. Can’t hurt.” They squeezed one another’s hands, a tiny gesture of love that rushed straight through Natasha’s veins and almost made her smile. She zipped up the apartment stairs and into their little space, only to find the radio belting out Christmas music, the tree lights on, and soup boiling over on the stove.

She turned the burner down and silenced “Holly Jolly Christmas.”

Now she knew where to find Steve.

  
  


\------------------

  
  


As she climbed the final flight of stairs, she saw the rooftop door ajar and heard voices. She stopped in the doorway, heart in her throat even though she had known he would be there. She listened. 

“Are you married, Thomas?” The wind whipped over Steve’s deep, certain voice.

“Yes.” The other voice, thin, tired, begged for release. Its quiet desperation cut her to the bone, but Steve’s did not falter.

“Tell me about your wife. How long have you known her?”

“We were high school sweethearts.”

“Wow. Here in Brooklyn?”

“No. We moved to the city a few years ago when I got a job here.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sarah.”

“Thomas and Sarah. Isn’t there a Shakespeare play with Thomas and Sarah in it?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Their voices became rhythmic, back and forth, hailing from one side of a roof to another with the steadiness of a friendly tennis warm-up. She swallowed, waited in utter stillness, afraid of even a single shift breaking into the careful pattern. Steve steered them in circles, always guiding, always listening but never losing control of the situation. When Thomas finally broke through the banter with a single, plaintive “Please don’t stop me,” Natasha’s pulse heightened.

“I have to,” Steve said. “I won’t lie to you. That’s the whole reason I came up here on this roof. I am going to stop you if you decide to jump. I just hope you’ll stop yourself first. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever have another Christmas Eve, your wife will. Your parents will. All those people down there on that sidewalk, me… we’ll all have more Christmas Eves, and if you don’t stop yourself or I don’t stop you, this memory will belong to all of us. It’s not just about you, Thomas.”

Over the wind, Natasha could not hear the first moment where, perhaps, Thomas’s feet clicked or he pushed off with a leap, but she did hear Steve’s boots scramble on the concrete and an irritated “Damn it.” She pushed through the door. He was already there, holding a grown man with one hand, gripping Thomas’ jacket like a dog’s scruff as he pulled him back from the edge. 

“How…?” Thomas lost the word in a rush of air.

Natasha sank back through the doorway, unneeded, and hurried down the flights of stairs to tell Molly everything was going to be okay. Pride bubbled in her chest with every step.

  
  


\-----------------

  
  


Incidents always involve paperwork and conversations and too much explaining, so Natasha waited patiently until nearly 10 o’clock for Steve to make his way home from the police station. 

As she sat next to the Christmas tree, book in her lap and (mostly) wrapped presents at her feet, she reveled in bittersweet happiness. How many years had she gone without Christmas? But even when she had found it, it had always belonged to someone else. Clint and Laura turned the whole farm into Santa’s Workshop, three Christmas trees, outside lights strung on every bush in the yard, a kitchen full of themed canisters and holiday food.

“She’s a friend of Clint’s from work,” Laura had told her parents the first year Natasha came. 

The Avengers had a Christmas party once, just them. It had been too loud, too raucous, too drunken to belong on a postcard, but it had been fun. Thor had decorated in unfamiliar, Asgardian tradition and regaled them with stories around a fire pit.

After Thanos, she had never thought about celebrating the holiday. The entire world had been frozen into two times: before and after. Somehow after didn’t have Christmas, and no one seemed to question it. At least no one she knew who had been on the front lines of that battlefield.

And now, she had finally created her own Christmas. She had selected a tree, adorned it with paper ornaments she and Steve learned to fold from a library book, and had even thrown a Christmas party, though it had admittedly been at a hospital rather than a home.

How astounding it was to be so proud and so sad at the same time, to be overjoyed to show family your accomplishment and to be heartbroken at the impossibility. 

She bit into a Christmas cookie and turned a page in her book. 

When Steve burst through the door of the apartment, he had a brown paper bag in one hand and his coat in the other. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I promised we would go to Rockefeller Center, but something came up.”

She bit her bottom lip, debating between letting him off the hook and toying with him. The latter proved irresistible.

“Just something?”

“Yeah, see---” He dropped the bag and coat on the floor, his hands conciliatory.

“Is that what you call saving a man’s life?” She stood up. “Just something.”

The wash of relief on his face made her smile too. “You knew.”

“I was on my way to the roof when I saw you had it handled. More than handled.” He kept his arms open, and she stepped into them. This hug bore none of the potential energy of so many recent interactions; it was the greeting of two teammates. She had missed that too. “What’d you tell the police?” 

“That adrenaline is incredibly powerful.” He shrugged. “But hey, will you sit down for a minute? I want to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

They sat opposite each other. He still had snowflakes on his hair and eyelashes, snow dropped from boot treads onto the floor, but he wore only a thin shirt, sleeves cuffed to the elbows, and showed no signs of cold. He radiated energy she could not read.

“When I came here, I had a plan. We were going to have a normal life. Completely. Work and baseball games and everything neither of us ever had.”

Pinpricks of heat flushed to her cheeks at the gentle, casual use of “we.”

“But I’ve been watching your work at the VA. You have a normal life, but you’re changing people’s lives. You’re still a hero.” He made eye contact; the heat flared hotter. “And what am I? A guy who works at the docks and gets a bonus for moving heavier loads faster than anyone else.”

No matter how tempted she was to interrupt and correct this statement, she held back. His face last night after the ball, vulnerable and haunted even in memory, stopped her.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t dream of a normal life. I dreamed of being a hero. Then I ended up being given this gift, and what am I doing now, handing it back?” He shook his head. “That’s not what I want to do anymore.”

Her lungs froze mid-expansion. He was going to go back home. The Pym particles in the sock drawer were about to become Plan A rather than a contingency. And damn if she wasn’t pissed off. The anger pushed her breathing back into motion. 

She didn’t ask for this life. She was  _ dead. _ She didn’t ask for  _ anything. _ When they first got here, she gave him an out, offered him a chance to strike out into 1945 to find Peggy and Bucky. She could do it alone. She just didn’t want to. Didn’t believe she would have to.

Especially after these months of life-building together. Especially after this had become their life, something shared and strong and chosen. 

“All good things come to an end.” The ice in her voice disguised the rage. He startled.

“Nat…”

“You’ve never been stupid or cruel, Steve, but I have to decide which one I’m looking at now.”

He flared now. “How about neither one?”

“I miss it too. I never planned on this.” She waved her hands at the Christmas tree, so beautiful a few minutes ago, suddenly too bright, too tacky, too silly. “I have lost everything I ever planned on keeping. S.H.I.E.L.D. The Avengers. The modern world. My life. Everything except you. Guess it’s time.”

“I know what you’ve sacrificed…” His eyes widened. “What do you think I’m talking about?”

“Going home.” She stuck out her chin, spoke without flinching. He rubbed his hands on his knees, looked to the ceiling, tapped a toe in a sudden flurry of energy. Then he took a deep, heavy breath and looked right at her.

“I am home. I was talking about being a hero here. In 1945. Maybe even Captain America.” 

She opened her mouth, pressed it closed to collect herself for a moment, and then tried again. Her voice showed none of the pounding of her heart or the silly relief rollicking in her stomach. “You bastard. You couldn’t have made that clear from the start?”

“How was I supposed to know you would think I would leave you?”

The rest of the words hung unspoken in the air, and her reaction suddenly seemed foolish and rash. 

“You don’t need to say anymore.”

“This time I guess I do. I’ve never left you behind. Nick Fury once analyzed my behavior patterns. Did he ever tell you that?”

“No.” Her embarrassment made her clipped.

“He always wants to know everything about everybody, but after everything that happened with S.H.I.E.L.D., he figured out the best way to manipulate me was to tell me everything he was using to manipulate me. So he showed me the file. A computer analyzed my decisions. Footage of us fighting. Incident reports. Everything. It determined my actions could be predicted based on a few factors. You were one of them. Algorithms said I wouldn’t leave you.”  He walked over to the abandoned paper bag and picked it up. “I scoffed at it. Seemed like an oversimplification. But with everything that happened after, it wasn’t wrong.”

She hadn’t known that. Her relationship with Nick had always hinged on a need-to-know basis. Unlike Steve, she had found it freeing not to have all the information, not to have to analyze and consider anything beyond the logistics of getting in and getting out.

“I’m not leaving you. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. I wish I had the file in my hand to show you. You’d believe Fury’s research over some empty words.”

Her hands fidgeted in sudden discomfort, for she had nothing to offer in response to what he had said, nothing to give back and equalize their footing once more. “They’re not empty.”

He tossed her the bag. She rooted inside and pulled out an ice skate, sleek, new, and in her size. Its twin rested below.  

“I thought we’d go ice skating since it’s too late to go to Rockefeller. There’s an outdoor rink nearby.”

She kicked her slippers off. “I’m a very good ice skater.”

“I’m not.” Now he smiled. “You can hold me up.”

They bundled up in warm layers and walked downtown. She bore the burden of conversation, considering it penance for the misunderstanding that had cost them logistics tonight. Instead, she talked about Molly and her plans for a date, told a story of herself learning to ice skate as a young woman, and needled him into sharing his own embarrassing story of trying (and failing) on the ice with Bucky in his youth.

At the rink, empty save for street light glow and some unpushed snow, they laced up. 

“Buck wanted to hold me up because I just kept falling and people kept laughing, and I was too stubborn to let him. I must have fallen a hundred times in 5 minutes. I couldn’t get the hang of it.” Steve chuckled. “You might not have been too impressed with me back then.”

A man who would not stay down no matter how many times he fell… she might have been very impressed by that.

“I’m not too impressed with you now,” she deadpanned.

He met her where she was. “Give me a few minutes.”

They spent the entire evening on the ice, Steve mastering it quickly, juiced on serum and specialized training, Natasha stroking in long, graceful curves around the outside of the rink. Eventually, he held out his hands for her, and they spun like kids, whirling until dizzy and laughing. 

If Steve wanted to change everything, emerge as Captain America once more in this new life, they had a lot to figure out.

But not tonight. Not tomorrow.

Tonight there was only the ice and the wind-nipped cheeks and the impromptu snowball fight that became a tactical war.

Tomorrow there would be presents and cookies and “The Gift of the Magi” and maybe a few glasses of Molly’s fabulous spiked eggnog. 

Everything else could wait.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I promise you they will not slow burn forever. As always, I love to know if a particular turn of phrase worked well for you!


End file.
